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A diagram of the 78 tallest buildings in the world in the year of 1884.

In a strange case of nominative determinism, a Worthington, Ohio, doctor was arrested for drunk driving. Elizabeth Unk was arrested after striking a bicyclist with her vehicle.

Unk, 38, is charged with one count of vehicular assault and two counts of driving a vehicle under the influence of alcohol, drugs or a combination of them.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol determined that Unk's blood-alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit.

Unk's driver's license has been suspended.

The incident happened last September, and the grand jury returned an indictment against Dr. Unk this week. Link  -via Arbroath

Photos: Henrik Petersson

Add this to the list of amazing cityscape art we've featured on Neatorama before: Still Life by Petter Johansson of PJADAD, made as an advertisement for Atelier Food. Link - via Dezeen

Tulsa, Oklahoma, is not the largest city around. It's not even the largest city in Oklahoma. But they are thinking about putting in a bid to host the 2024 Olympics.   

"I see this as a great opportunity, I really do,” said Tulsa’s mayor, who probably has a name like Dewey Bartlett. Oh. His name really is Dewey Bartlett. Anyway: "If we come off looking a little lighthearted on it, so much the better, but we are serious about putting our name out there."

Although Tulsa has almost 400,000 people, the Olympic Committee might consider it a small town. ESPN Playbook had a little fun with the idea, and made a template for small-town Olympic bids. All you have to do is fill in the name of your town. A sample:

Gym Sports Venue: High School Gym and the YMCA

Basketball, volleyball, wrestling, badminton, whatever handball is, gymnastics -- we can host them all. The main gym floors at our high school and our town’s YMCA have lines for basketball and volleyball. There is also a full-sized basketball court at the middle school, but the floor is pretty old and it is slippery even if it’s just been swept.

If these venues are not enough to accommodate all the gym sports, the badminton competition can be moved to any number of backyards in our town. Gymnastics have not been part of our gym curriculum since the late '80s -- again thanks to insurance issues. (People will sue you nowadays if their kid gets hurt falling off a pommel horse.) However, we probably have most of our gymnastics equipment still in some equipment closet somewhere.

The rest covers aquatic, equestrian, and other sports venues, athlete housing, transportation, and production for the opening and closing ceremonies. Link -via mental_floss

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May 14th, 2013: STILL BIG INTO TCAF OVER HERE. I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who came out and said hi - I met so many awesome people and it was terrific! In conclusion: YAY TCAF. One year ago today: medusa fan comix – Ryan

Date: May 15, 2013

Location: United Kingdom

Tags: toys, Art, Frank Hornby, Meccano, railways, cranes, Sciences, Birthday, Architecture, trains, Technology, History

One of the dorkiest shirts we've done in a while.

While history knows him as a great Enlightenment thinker, Voltaire was once Francois-Marie Arouet, the charismatic and rebellious youngest son of a middle-class French family. In his early life, Voltaire fell consistently afoul of French authorities and was no stranger to controversy. Besides being exiled from Paris for a time in his early career, he was also imprisoned in the infamous Bastille prison in Paris for 11 months, using his time there to write his first play.

A major turning point in his life, which had it not happened may have resulted in history forgetting the brilliant man, was shortly after he returned from exile in England and met a brilliant mathematician, Charles Marie de la Condamine, at a dinner party held by Charles du Fay.  Voltaire at the time was struggling financially, but de la Condamine had a plan which he proposed to Voltaire that would help make Voltaire and himself a boatload of money via ever so slightly unscrupulous means, though technically not breaking any laws.

During the early part of the eighteenth century, the French government issued a series of bonds to help raise money.  With the decline of the French economy in the 1720s, they were forced to cut the interest rates on the bonds, which drastically diminished the market value of said bonds.  This resulted in the French government having considerable difficulty in raising money via new bond sales.

One Le Pelletier-Desforts, Deputy Finance Minister for France, had a “brilliant” idea as to how to raise the value of existing bonds, encourage the sale of new bonds, and earn some money for the government- a trifecta. His idea was to allow bond owners to buy a lottery ticket linked to the value of their bonds (each ticket costing 1/1000th of the bond’s value). The winner would get the face value of their bond, which was much more than what they could get on the market, plus a ‘jackpot’ of 500,000 livres, which would make the winner instantly insanely rich- essentially set for life.

Unfortunately for the government, and fortunate for those of you who enjoy Voltaire’s work, the mathematics behind this new government fundraising scheme was vastly flawed.  You see, if you owned a bond worth a very small amount, with the lotto ticket for the bond costing just 1/1000th of the value, you could buy the lotto tickets extremely cheaply, yet your lotto ticket had just as much of a chance of winning as someone who owned a bond for 100,000 livres and had to buy their ticket for 100 livres.  Thus, de la Condamine realized that if he was able to buy up a large percentage of the existing small bonds, split into 1,000 livres a bond, he could then buy each lotto ticket for just 1 livre.  If he owned enough of these small bonds, he could quickly give himself the bulk of the entrees in the lotto while spending much less than the jackpot, thus assuring he’d win quite often and always win much more than he put in.

Although de la Condamine was already reasonably wealthy, he was attracted to the vast riches that could be gleaned from gaming the lottery. However, he did not want to risk his own wealth or reputation to do so. This is where Voltaire comes in. Voltaire was not rich nor particularly famous at this point, but he was extremely charismatic, well connected, and had developed a healthy distrust and dislike for the French government.

De la Condamine proposed that he and Voltaire create a syndicate with various wealthy patrons and Voltaire as the front man.  The group would buy up as many cheap government bonds as possible as described above and win an amazing amount of money in the process.  Finding investors and buying up the cheap bonds was easy.  The problem was now that there were only a handful of notaries one could go to get the lottery tickets.  If one person was seen to be the recipient of most of the lottery tickets, the scheme would quickly fail as the government would realize what was happening.  Voltaire again proved his worth working out a deal with one of the notaries empowered to issue lotto tickets.

The plan worked. The syndicate collected their winnings every month from the government office, making themselves copious amounts of money and paying shares of the winnings out appropriately to those involved.

The syndicate carried on winning the huge jackpot month after month, but the plan was let down by Voltaire being Voltaire. Generally most people would write things on the back of their lotto tickets, usually good luck phrases.  Voltaire, in his typical fashion, would instead write phrases mocking the government and officials, as well as simply partially giving away their scheme and who was involved, like “Here’s to the good idea of Marie De La Condamine”.  He’d then sign the tickets with various made up names.

The organizers of the lottery eventually realized from this that many of the prizes were being won by the same group and they quickly figured out who was behind it. The French finance minister took the syndicate and Voltaire to court, but as the group had done nothing illegal, they were allowed to keep the prize money. However, the lottery was cancelled after the court case against Voltaire’s syndicate collapsed.

In total, in little over a year, Voltaire himself got to keep around 500,000 livres of the total prize money, with the rest being distributed among the syndicate. Both Voltaire and de la Condamine were now ridiculously wealthy, and were able to pursue their scientific and literary endeavors at their leisure.

De la Condamine continued his work in mathematics, and led a trip to the Andes where he attempted to measure the circumference of the Earth and to determine whether or not the Earth was a perfect sphere or not (as they discovered, not). Such was his wealth, that he was able to fund the entire trip himself. While in South America, de la Condamine also mapped the Amazon River, the first scientific exploration of the region. In addition, he helped define the length of a meter, among many other major accomplishments. De la Condamine married his niece ad eventually died in 1774, at the ripe old age of 73.

Voltaire used his lottery winnings to invest in business opportunities, often using information he learned from well placed individuals, like when to buy and sell certain shares of various ventures. While today this would be called insider trading, there was no law against it in eighteenth century France, and Voltaire soon went from very wealthy to “Mr. Burns” wealthy. This didn’t stop him in his quest to alienate everybody powerful he came into contact with – from Parisian society to Frederick the Great of Prussia, to the government of Geneva; in this, his wealth came in handy as he was constantly in need of escaping the wrath of the authorities in one city or another, and even found himself exiled from Paris again.

Voltaire became regarded as one of the greatest thinkers and writers of his age, as well as an extreme Smart Alec and one of the key figures of the Enlightenment. Somewhat bizarrely by today’s thinking, like de la Condamine, Voltaire fell in love with his niece, Marie Louise Mignot (daughter of his sister). Eventually the two lived together, for a time posing as a married couple though they never actually married.  They stayed together until his death in 1778, at which point the vast majority of his estate was left to her.

So, in the end, the cash strapped French government inadvertently managed to fund one of the greatest mathematicians and one of the greatest philosophers of the age, the latter of which, at least, likely would have been forgotten in history if not for his vast wealth that allowed his brilliant mind free rein to write on whatever he wished without having to worry about money, public opinion, or the ire of the elite.

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy:

• Abraham Lincoln Established the Secret Service on the Day He was Assassinated
• The Author of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” was Largely Responsible for the U.S. Thanksgiving Holiday and Most of the Traditions Associated With It
• Julius Caesar was Once Kidnapped by Pirates Who Demanded a Ransom of 20 Talents of Silver, Caesar Insisted They Ask for 50
• Ben Franklin’s Proposal of Something Like Daylight Savings Time was Meant as a Joke
• John Wilkes Booth’s Brother Saved Abraham Lincoln’s Son’s Life Shortly Before Lincoln was Assassinated

Bonus Facts:

• Voltaire landed himself in the Bastille after being insulted by Chevalier de Rohan, a French nobleman.  Not being one to take insults lightly, and being amazingly witty, Voltaire supposedly responded to the insult in kind, getting the better of de Rohan.  De Rohan was not pleased and sent a few of his servants along to beat Voltaire, which they did.  Voltaire then threatened a duel with De Rohan if damages were not paid, at which point De Rohan simply got King Louis XV to have Voltaire imprisoned without trial. (Voltaire’s post-lotto wealth shielded him from such things happening again.)  He may have been left in prison for the duration of his life, but he suggested that he be exiled to England, which he eventually was.
• Francois-Marie Arouet’s most popular pen name, “Voltaire”, is an anagram of the Latinized spelling of his last name “Arouet”, which was “Arovet Li”. (He also used 177 other pen names in his lifetime.  Besides his more well-known works, Voltaire also wrote over 20,000 letters which have survived to this day and have been compiled into 102 volumes.)

Expand for References

Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse for the Obama administration, Dr. Donohue drops another bombshell:

The problems with the IRS extend beyond playing politics with conservative groups seeking a tax-exempt status. I have never made this public before, but given the heightened interest in the way the IRS has conducted itself, the time has come to disclose what happened. 

Just weeks after Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, I was notified by the IRS that the Catholic League was under investigation for violating the IRS Code on political activities as it relates to 501(c)(3) organizations. What the IRS did not know was that I had proof who contacted them to launch the investigation: Catholics United, a George Soros-funded Catholic organization.

The IRS was contacted on June 5, 2008, to launch a probe of the Catholic League, and the letter sent to me was dated Nov. 24, 2008.

Does the Obama administration have no shame? Are there no depths to which it will not — wait, what’s that? Obama wasn’t inaugurated until January 2009? So this actually happened under George W. Bush? And Catholics United never made a secret of its concerns about the Catholic League’s tax status? Nor is the group really funded by George Soros? And Donohue has a history of complaining to the IRS about liberals?

Oh. Never mind.

You may recall how, back in April, Tennessee state Sen. Jon Lundberg bestowed upon himself a resolution declaring Tennessee state Sen. Jon Lundberg the kindest bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being in the history of EVER. This week, Sen. Lundberg, recognizing that he’ll never match his confrere Stacy Campfield in the sheer asshattery needed to win Wonkette’s coveted Legislative Shitmuffin of the Year Award, made a clever play for recognition in the still-prestigious subcategory of Outstanding Achievement in Vanity Legislation: He co-sponsored a bill to take down a traffic camera that issued him a speeding ticket in 2010. Take that, roadside robot tyrants!

Lundberg received a ticket in 2010 when the camera caught his Ford doing 60 miles per hour in a 45 zone in Bluff City. The traffic camera does not capture images of the driver’s face, and Lundberg insisted that, like everyone who’s ever gotten a traffic-cam ticket, that he happened to not be driving his vehicle that day, since it was being driven by an employee of his public relations firm, or maybe his mother, who was feeling poorly at the time, and finds that a little recreational speeding lifts her spirits. Or it could have been teenaged gangster-bangers out for a joyride, you never know.

According to the Nashville City Paper, the bill is “[n]arrowly written to apply only in Bluff City,” and would make “the two traffic cameras in the city illegal once its contract with the provider expire[s] in late 2014.”

Asked about the seeming vendetta against the radar camera what done him wrong, Lundberg insisted that personal animus against the inanimate object was the farthest thing from his mind:

The traffic camera speeding ticket “has absolutely zero effect” on his decision to sponsor the bill, Lundberg told The City Paper. “In fact, until you said that, I completely forgot about that.”

Rumors that Lundberg was drafting a bill to have the Nashville City Paper’s offices seized under eminent domain, to be replaced with an Exploding Foamy Pigshit Research Institute, could not be confirmed at press time.

[Gawker / Nashville City Paper]

Earlier today, the Pope received a group of four new ambassadors to the Holy See for the presentation of their credentials.

Per custom for the pontiffs, Francis gave an address on issues of geopolitical concern. Yet while his predecessors would tailor their remarks to issues in the home-countries of the diplomat(s) being welcomed, the new Pope targeted what's long been one of his key focus-areas – the poor, and their treatment in the economic system.

Packing a punch – and unusually for Francis, referring to himself as "the Pope" (as opposed to his normally-preferred "bishop of Rome") to add full weight to some of his statements – here's the bulk of the address' English translation:

Ladies and Gentlemen, our human family is presently experiencing something of a turning point in its own history, if we consider the advances made in various areas. We can only praise the positive achievements which contribute to the authentic welfare of mankind, in fields such as those of health, education and communications. At the same time, we must also acknowledge that the majority of the men and women of our time continue to live daily in situations of insecurity, with dire consequences. Certain pathologies are increasing, with their psychological consequences; fear and desperation grip the hearts of many people, even in the so-called rich countries; the joy of life is diminishing; indecency and violence are on the rise; poverty is becoming more and more evident. People have to struggle to live and, frequently, to live in an undignified way. One cause of this situation, in my opinion, is in the our relationship with money, and our acceptance of its power over ourselves and our society. Consequently the financial crisis which we are experiencing makes us forget that its ultimate origin is to be found in a profound human crisis. In the denial of the primacy of human beings! We have created new idols. The worship of the golden calf of old (cf. Ex 32:15-34) has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal.

The worldwide financial and economic crisis seems to highlight their distortions and above all the gravely deficient human perspective, which reduces man to one of his needs alone, namely, consumption. Worse yet, human beings themselves are nowadays considered as consumer goods which can be used and thrown away. We have begun a throw away culture. This tendency is seen on the level of individuals and whole societies; and it is being promoted! In circumstances like these, solidarity, which is the treasure of the poor, is often considered counterproductive, opposed to the logic of finance and the economy. While the income of a minority is increasing exponentially, that of the majority is crumbling. This imbalance results from ideologies which uphold the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation, and thus deny the right of control to States, which are themselves charged with providing for the common good. A new, invisible and at times virtual, tyranny is established, one which unilaterally and irremediably imposes its own laws and rules. Moreover, indebtedness and credit distance countries from their real economy and citizens from their real buying power. Added to this, as if it were needed, is widespread corruption and selfish fiscal evasion which have taken on worldwide dimensions. The will to power and of possession has become limitless. 

Concealed behind this attitude is a rejection of ethics, a rejection of God. Ethics, like solidarity, is a nuisance! It is regarded as counterproductive: as something too human, because it relativizes money and power; as a threat, because it rejects manipulation and subjection of people: because ethics leads to God, who is situated outside the categories of the market. These financiers, economists and politicians consider God to be unmanageable, unmanageable even dangerous, because he calls man to his full realization and to independence from any kind of slavery. Ethics – naturally, not the ethics of ideology – makes it possible, in my view, to create a balanced social order that is more humane. In this sense, I encourage the financial experts and the political leaders of your countries to consider the words of Saint John Chrysostom: “Not to share one’s goods with the poor is to rob them and to deprive them of life. It is not our goods that we possess, but theirs” (Homily on Lazarus, 1:6 – PG 48, 992D). 

Dear Ambassadors, there is a need for financial reform along ethical lines that would produce in its turn an economic reform to benefit everyone. This would nevertheless require a courageous change of attitude on the part of political leaders. I urge them to face this challenge with determination and farsightedness, taking account, naturally, of their particular situations. Money has to serve, not to rule! The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but the Pope has the duty, in Christ’s name, to remind the rich to help the poor, to respect them, to promote them. The Pope appeals for disinterested solidarity and for a return to person-centred ethics in the world of finance and economics. 

For her part, the Church always works for the integral development of every person. In this sense, she reiterates that the common good should not be simply an extra, simply a conceptual scheme of inferior quality tacked onto political programmes. The Church encourages those in power to be truly at the service of the common good of their peoples. She urges financial leaders to take account of ethics and solidarity. And why should they not turn to God to draw inspiration from his designs? In this way, a new political and economic mindset would arise that would help to transform the absolute dichotomy between the economic and social spheres into a healthy symbiosis.

On a related note, it's worth recalling that Villa Richardson – the seat of the US' ambassador to the Holy See – remains vacant following Miguel Diaz's departure early this year for a professorship at the University of Dayton.

-30-

There is no question that films that specifically highlight an area, such as the Napa Valley wine country in the movie, "Sideways," can foster a significant increase in tourism ("Sideways' in Santa Barbara wine country" from the Los Angeles Times) or how the book (1994) and film (1997) "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" still helps to stoke tourism in Savannah, even 15 years after the movie was first released.

Or "The Office" tv series which was set in Scranton, PA but not  produced there ("The Office leaves its mark on Scranton, Pennsylvania" from the Toronto Star).

Similarly, not only do television series focused on a particular locale (e.g., Law and Order in NYC vs. "Criminal Minds" ) have the potential to stoke tourism, such programs help to anchor film production in that area and provide work for actors, also supporting the industry and artistic disciplines in very specific ways.

Not only did this come up with the cancellation of L&O ("Law & Order' To the Actors' Rescue" and "Law and Order and Regular Employment" from the New York Times) and Homicide/The Wire which were shot in Baltimore, it's now an issue in Miami where CSI: Miami was cancelled a couple years ago and the USA Network show "Burn Notice" goes into its final season.  According to "Burn Notice' burns $25 million hole" from Miami Today News, the expected impact on the local film industry is a minimum of $25 million in lost business. From the article:

"Everyone — local hotels, car rentals, restaurants, retail stores — has benefited immensely from this show being produced in Miami," Ms. Lighterman said. Burn Notice "contributed to film-induced tourism and helped to make Miami sexy again. We have been privileged to have them call Miami-Dade County home, and they will be sorely missed." ...

The full effect of the departure of "Burn Notice" will probably be most keenly felt next spring, when the show traditionally began filming each season, she said. "At the time when they would normally be gearing up, if there is nothing new to take its place, there will be a couple of hundred people out of work and $25 million less coming into our community. We'll have to see."

In theater, this comes up in Kansas City, with the impending closure of the Heartland Theater ("KC theater community laments closing of American Heartland in August from the Kansas City Star). The theater's going dark will definitely make it harder for actors to make a living solely on roles available in the region. From the article:

Cathy Barnett, a veteran actress who has performed with most Kansas City theater companies as well as on stages across the country, is one of a handful of people who actually makes a living as a performer.

So for Barnett, the news that the American Heartland Theatre will close its doors in August, at the end of its current season, was a shock. And it had her calculating her future employment possibilities. With the loss of a for-profit company that has given work to most of the professional actors based in Kansas City, the local theater economy won’t be the same.

“I think from an actor’s point of view … there is the dinner theater, the American Heartland and the (Kansas City) Rep that actually pay a living wage and your insurance and offered you a real nice contract,” Barnett said. “It’s a living wage. And I’m not disrespecting the smaller houses, but to lose one of (the theaters) actors really counted on is terrible. As of right now, I have no work next year. I got nothin’.”

I think the lessons are pretty clear.

1. Focus on attracting an anchor television show shot in your locality to foster the development of a broad television and film production eco-system in your community, as way as a means to (positively hopefully) promote your community on national television.

2. Baring that, if you're going to give tax breaks, differentiate them, and support programs (movies and television shows) with tax breaks only when you can see a measurably positive effect on economic development, including the long term development of your local film production industry.  Otherwise it's hard to determine what the benefit really is.  See "Cut through the film tax credit fiction" from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

3. And meanwhile, plan for "anchor" television shows to end eventually, and work to develop new shows to replace them, otherwise your local production eco-system-cluster will whither away (an issue in Baltimore for example; in Miami, it is still rising as a production locale for Spanish-language programming, but you'd better be bilingual--"Spanish-Language TV Dramas Heat Up Miami" from the New York Times).

The Economist‘s language blog considers the linguistic legacy of the 1066 Norman invasion:

When the Normans, who spoke a dialect of Old French, ruled over England, they changed the face of English. Over the ensuing two centuries, thousands of Old French words entered English. Because the ruling class spoke Old French, that set of vocabulary became synonymous with the elite. Everyone else used Old English. During this period, England’s society was diglossic: one community, two language sets with distinct social spheres.

Today, English-speakers pick and choose from the different word sets—Latinate (largely Old French borrowings) and Germanic (mostly Old English-derived words)—depending on the occasion. … In informal chat, for example, we might go on to ask something, but in formal speech we’d proceed to inquire. There are hundreds of such pairs: match/correspond, mean/intend, see/perceive,speak/converse. Most of us choose one or the other without even thinking about the history behind the split. Germanic words are often described as earthier, simpler, and friendlier. Latinate vocabulary, on the other hand, is lofty and elite. It’s amazing that nine hundred years later, the social and political structure of 12th-century England still affects how we think about and use English.

Some families with money to burn have found a nefarious way to bypass long lines at Walt Disney World in Florida: hire a disabled person to be part of your family for the day.  

The “black-market Disney guides” run $130 an hour, or $1,040 for an eight-hour day.

“My daughter waited one minute to get on ‘It’s a Small World’ — the other kids had to wait 2 1/2 hours,” crowed one mom, who hired a disabled guide through Dream Tours Florida.

“You can’t go to Disney without a tour concierge,’’ she sniffed. “This is how the 1 percent does Disney.”

The woman said she hired a Dream Tours guide to escort her, her husband and their 1-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter through the park in a motorized scooter with a “handicapped” sign on it. The group was sent straight to an auxiliary entrance at the front of each attraction.

Disney allows each guest who needs a wheelchair or motorized scooter to bring up to six guests to a “more convenient entrance.”

Link  -via Digg

(Image credit:Flickr user Joe Penniston)

America doesn't have many roundabouts because even if you understand how one works, you have to worry about other drivers who don't. But they are a fact of life in Britain. The ultimate roundabout is this one in Swindon that is actually a cluster of roundabouts in one intersection.  

The Magic Roundabout in Swindon, England, constructed in 1972, is the most brilliant and at the same time, the most confusing roundabout ever built. The roundabout, named after the popular children's television series by the same name, is located near the County Ground and consists of five mini-roundabouts arranged in a circle. At first sight, it might appear to confuse or amuse new visitors and certainly baffle tourists but once you understand how the roundabout works you will realize how revolutionary the idea is.

Other pictures and diagrams at Amusing Planet may help you parse out what is supposed to happen. Keep in mind that driving on the  left side of the road is the correct thing to do in this location. Link -via the Presurfer

(Image credit: Google Earth)

Seulbi Kim, a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, offers this one-handed solution to transporting food from your local burger joint. She writes:

The carrier will reduce the volume by about 50% compared to that today because I tried to simplify the design and minimize the amount of paper used with a hook for French fries, a sleeve for a burger, and a hole for soda drink, which causes people to carry it easier, and more materials saving. It is one-handed, convenient, practical, and compact, so your hands can be more free by holding all in one.

Link -via Foodbeast | Designer's Website

The Oatmeal’s post is here. Pretty darn good too. You have to watch this NOVA program on Cuttlefish, if just to see the the ‘Broadclub’ Cuttlefish hypnosis strobe effect.

flavorpill:

Joseph Heller’s chart outline for Catch-22. Check out the full gallery of Famous Authors’ Handwritten Outlines.

Well this is adorable.

Dorset, Minnesota, population 22, has a mayor who isn't even in kindergarten. That'd be Bobby Tufts, who is four. Tufts is by his own account an excellent fisherman and has a girlfriend named Sophia.

Dorset mayors are picked by drawing names from a hat and serve a one-year term. You don't even have to be a resident to enter the drawing, you just have to pay $1 at the annual Taste of Dorset festival, which hosts the "election." How's that for a civic promotion?

Via WFMY News.

In celebration of Pixar's prequel Monster's University Epcot has transformed the famous Spaceship Earth ride into the giant monster Mike Wazowski. And animated it. It's pretty impressive.

Read more...

Our economy is huge, incomprehensible and potentially deadly if you take a wrong step — just like space, in fact. So when it comes to understanding the fundamentals of economics, you need to read some classic and recent science fiction novels. Luckily, Paul Krugman and Noah Smith have provided a reading list.

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WASHINGTON—Claiming that nothing about the city really evokes the strong sense of pride and endurance that typically serves as a source of strength in a time of need, members of President Barack Obama’s speech writing team admitted Thursday th...

Link (Thanks, Zemyla)

This map reveals where the vast majority of the human population lives, by latitude. Like the Starks, most of us dwell in the north.

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In order to pay Germany's staggering World War I reparations, one of the country's greatest scientific minds created a plan to concentrate and remove gold from seawater. Fritz Haber, a Nobel Prize winner, went from creating chemical weapons to panning for gold in the ocean. But could this have worked?

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AAAAAAAAAA. Lego. Steampunk. Official. Coming in July. We have pics and info. AAAAAAAAAA.

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